Madeleine McCann detective ordered to pay her parents £358,000

Goncalo Amaral had been on trial over claims he made in a book and a documentary that Gerry and Kate McCann were involved in their daughter Madeleine’s disappearance in Praia da Luz on the Algarve in 2007.

A FORMER detective has been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to the McCann family following a libel case in a Portuguese court.

Goncalo Amaral had been on trial over claims he made in a book and a documentary that Gerry and Kate McCann were involved in their daughter Madeleine’s disappearance in Praia da Luz on the Algarve in 2007.

In a written verdict, a Lisbon court agreed that Amaral should pay Mr and Mrs McCann 250,000 euros (£179,000) each in damages and it banned further sales of his book The Truth Of The Lie.

Madeleine was aged three when she went missing from her family’s holiday apartment on May 3 2007 as her parents dined at a nearby tapas restaurant with friends.

Mr Amaral, who led the initial investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance, released his book The Truth Of The Lie three days after the case was closed in 2008.

He later took part in a documentary for Portuguese television in which he claimed that Madeleine was dead, that there had been no abduction and the McCanns had hidden her body.

Giving evidence at Lisbon’s Palace of Justice last year the couple spoke of their “devastation, desperation, anxiety and pain” over the claims.

The couple also said that the book and documentary had hampered support from the Portuguese people as they looked for their daughter.

Mrs McCann told the court that her young son Sean had asked about Mr Amaral’s allegations after hearing about them on the radio while travelling on the school bus.